Embattled WHO Virus Origins Team Says Window Closing For Probe
- Proposed rival committee exposes fissures with WHO leadership
- Group defends its efforts while asking for support to continue
Workers place barriers outside the closed Huanan Seafood wholesale market during a visit by members of the World Health Organization team, investigating the origins of the Covid-19 coronavirus, in Wuhan, China on Jan. 31.
Photographer: Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty ImagesAn embattled group of scientists charged by the World Health Organization with studying the origins of the coronavirus pandemic is pleading for support of its work, saying a new approach that includes a focus on the lab-leak hypothesis would take too long to gather fading evidence.
The researchers, writing in the journal Nature, defended their initial efforts and said a second phase is essential to get clear answers about how the pathogen emerged. The planned work includes efforts to find evidence of the virus before it was detected in Wuhan in December 2019, as well as surveys of wildlife that could have harbored the pathogen.